MOULTRIE, Ga. — After the Colquitt County Board of Commissioners meeting on July 19, commissioners felt pretty confident that the question of golf carts on subdivision roads was being addressed. A procedure was in place and commissioners could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Two weeks later, it was clear the light was an oncoming train.

At the July 19 meeting, County Attorney Lester Castellow and Sheriff Rod Howell laid out the rules the state requires the county to follow and the rules the vehicle owner must follow to allow “personal transportation vehicles,” including golf carts, to operate on public roads. Castellow presented a procedure whereby residents of a subdivision can petition to have speed limits in the subdivision reduced to 25 mph. Once the county lowers the speed limit, owners of properly outfitted golf carts would be able to ride them there, he said.

Based on those instructions, residents of Tallokas Trails subdivision collected more than 100 signatures on a petition to reduce the speed limit and gave the petition to county officials during the Aug. 2 meeting.

Another requirement of state law is erecting signs to let motorists know they might encounter golf carts on certain roadways. After the July 19 meeting, Castellow and other county officials met to work out details  of the signs, and that’s when Castellow discovered he had been referring to outdated laws. An amendment passed in 2014 requires an engineering and traffic survey to support the reduction in speed limit and to state that accommodating personal transportation vehicles would not adversely affect traffic safety or the travel needs of other users.

Castellow said the state Department of Transportation directed him to a private traffic engineer who could perform the required traffic survey. He included the traffic engineer’s fee schedule with his information for the board of commissioners, and it indicated the process would cost a minimum of $15,000.

He said the DOT also said many surveys do not approve the speed limit reduction and in some cases support a speed limit increase instead.

Started with a safety issue

The conflict came to the commission’s attention at its July 5 meeting but was based on numerous incidents that came to a head a few days before that.

Residents of the Tallokas Trails neighborhood frequently drove golf carts or ATVs to neighbors’ houses. It was a way to socialize as well as a convenient means of transportation throughout the subdivision.

Based on comments at the various commission meetings, it was apparently common practice for children to drive the vehicles too. One of those children — his age has never been stated in a commission meeting — was driving an ATV recklessly around a curve when a neighbor almost hit him head-on in her car. The neighbor called 911 to report the boy’s actions but did not contact the boy’s parents.

In piecing together the story after the fact, Howell said his deputies found at least six incidents in which the boy had driven the ATV in a dangerous manner. The sheriff told the commissioners he was the first person to discuss the matter with the boy’s parents.

The neighbor who called 911 wasn’t satisfied with the sheriff’s office’s response, so she notified the Georgia State Patrol. GSP troopers began to patrol the neighborhood. 

When the sheriff’s office was primarily responsible for patrolling the neighborhood, deputies’ focus was on dangerous traffic behavior, deterring burglaries and addressing other serious offenses if they were found. The deputies didn’t stop people for riding golf carts on the roadway, even though it is technically against state law.

The state troopers took a different approach. While they apparently didn’t file charges against anyone — at least none were mentioned in the commission meetings — the troopers issued stern warnings to both children and adults if they found them driving improper vehicles on the roadway.

The boy’s mother told commissioners July 5 that her son would not be riding his ATV again — recklessly or otherwise — but the neighborhood was still dealing with the zealous enforcement by the GSP.

Howell said Aug. 2 that he has seen a letter from the GSP to the troopers that said “the point was made” and they could leave the area.

Where it stands now

Riding a golf cart or ATV on a public roadway is still illegal everywhere in Colquitt County. Howell told the commissioners July 5 that he expects his deputies to employ common sense — if a person driving a golf cart isn’t causing a problem they shouldn’t be stopped. The state patrol, on the other hand, is entitled to patrol everywhere in the state and will continue to enforce the law.

County commissioners showed no interest in spending $15,000 or more for a traffic survey, especially if it might not support the end goal of allowing golf carts.

Howell said he would speak with residents of the subdivision in the days following the meeting. He said he’d hoped to do so before the Aug. 2 meeting but he and his staff had been working with the school system to get ready for the start of classes Aug. 3.

His goal would be to address safety concerns, especially on the S-curve where the neighbor almost hit the child on the ATV. These discussions will not make riding golf carts on roadways legal, but if they can make doing so safe, Howell hopes to satisfy neighbors who have continued to raise concerns with law enforcement.